Jumping seat toy



Dec. 19, 1961 J. O. KUHN JUMPING SEAT TOY Filed Dec. 3, 1959 INVENTOR.

ATTOENEY.

United States Patent G 3,013,764 JUMPING SEAT TOY James O. Kuhn, Cincinnati, Ohio, assignor to Emma- Mint Company, Cincinnati, Ohio, a corporation of Delaware Filed Dec. 3, 1959, Ser. No. 856,953 8 Claims. (Cl. 248-387) This invention relates to a toy, and particularly to a childs jumping seat.

It has been an objective of the invention to provide an inexpensive rugged jumping seat toy for a child. The toy of the present invention in the illustrated preferred form has only four major parts and three of these, the springs, are duplicates of each other. Thus, the toy is quite simple to manufacture and, as a consequence, can be produced and sold with economy to both the manufacturer and purchaser.

A further objective of the invention has been to provide a resilient jumping toy which has sufficient flexibility for use by a small child but does not bring the child to a sudden jarring stop at the bottom of the jumping stroke.

More specifically, the jumping seat of the present invention comprises three Z-shaped strips formed of spring steel and joined at the top to a seat board. The strips are joined at the bottom and may be provided with rubber feet so that the toy is suitable for indoor use.

The resilient springs not only provide the desired jumping action, but are so related to each other as to cooperate to prevent the seat coming to a sudden jarring stop at the bottom of the jumping stroke. The latter cooperative feature is provided by the fact that the inclined portions of the Z-shaped springs, which are normally spaced from each other, engage each other as the seat approaches the bottom of the jumping stroke. The engagement of the inclined portions of the Z-shaped springs with each other forms a much stronger support than that provided by the springs acting individually, but still a not completely rigid support for the seat.

Thus, the seat has a two-phase action. In the first phase the Z-shaped springs act individually with considerable resilient flexibility through the major portion of the jumping stroke. In the second phase of the jumping stroke the springs combine for cooperative action which provides a much greater resistance to the continued depression of the seat thereby bringing the child to the bottom of the stroke without jarring.

Through this design it is possible to use a light gauge metal to provide the greater flexibility without necessitating the complete collapse of the springs at the bottom of the jumping stroke.

These objectives of the invention will become more readily apparent in the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the invention; and

PEG. 2 is a side elevational view thereof.

The seat indicated at 10 is constructed of a seat board 11 and three identical Z-shaped springs 12. Each spring has a top strip 13, a bottom strip 14 and an inclined portion 15. The top strips 13 are joined to each other and to the seat board 11 by means of three bolts or rivets 16. The bottom strips are also joined to each other and to three rubber feet 17 by bolts or rivets 1-8. It should be understood that the elements may be joined together in several different ways without departing from the scope of the invention. For example, the improved characteristics of the invention could be attained without requiring the springs to be joined to each other for the top strips 13 could be foreshortened and joined to the seat board and the bottom strips 14 could be foreshortened and joined to a base plate while maintaining a desired orientation of the springs with respect to each other.

The seat board 111 is of generally triangular configuration and thus cooperates with the triangular configuration provided by the joining of the top bars 13. The seat board triangle has an apex indicated at 20 at the front the compressed position shown in full lines in FIG. 2 tov the extended position shown in broken lines in FIG. 2.

In the extended position which the seat takes when the seat is unstressed, the inclined portions 15 of the Z-shaped springs are spaced from each other by an inch or two. When the seat is compressed as shown in full lines in FIG. 2, each inclined portion 15 engages the adjacent inclined portion immediately below it to provide a cooperative strengthening of the spring support for the seat.

The cooperative strengthening may be best understood by considering each spring as it acts individually to provide one-third of the seat support. Before cooperative engagement of the springs, the top portion of the spring may be considered to be pivoting about a fulcrum indicated at 24 (FIG. 2) at the bottom portion of the spring. When the springs engage each other, the fulcrum point is shifted to the point of engagement indicated at 2.5. It will be appreciated that the shifting of the fulcrum point as indicated will greatly reduce the flexibility of the resilient springs, but still will not render the support completely rigid.

Thus, in operation, the child bounces downwardly through a first phase of comparatively great flexibility to a second phase of much stronger, but not completely rigid, support. The second phase effectively blocks the downward stroke of the seat without requiring the seat to be brought to a jarring stop. In the second phase, the springs might be considered to provide a complex of inter-related triangular trusses, whereas in the first phase support is attained through the individual action of the three 2- shaped spring steel strips.

I claim:

1. A jumping seat comprising, three Z-shaped resilient strips, each strip having a top strip and a bottom strip joined by an inclined strip, the top strips and the bottom strips being joined together to form a triangle at the top and bottom of the seat, each said inclined strip overlying and being normally spaced from an adjacent strip, anda seat board secured to said top triangle.

2. A jumping seat comprising, three Z-shaped resilient strips, each strip having a top strip and a' bottom strip forming a portion of said Z-shape, the top strips, and the bottom strips being joined together to form a triangle at the top and bottom of the seat, a generally triangular seat board secured to said top triangle, and ground engaging means secured to said bottom triangle.

3. A jumping seat comprising, three Z-shaped resilient strips, each strip having a top strip and a bottom strip forming a portion of said Z-shape, the top strips, and the bottom strips being joined together to form a triangle at the top and bottom of the seat, and a seat board secured to said top triangle. v I

4. A jumping seat comprising, three Z-shaped resilient strips, each strip havinga top strip and a bottom strip forming a portion of said Z-shape, the top strips, and

the bottom strips being joined together to form a triangle having hand grips at two corners thereof, and ground engaging means secured to said bottom triangle.

5. A jumping seat comprising, three Z-shaped resilient strips, each strip having a top strip and a bottom strip forming a portion of said Z-shape, the top strips and the bottom strips being joined together to form a triangle at the top and bottom of the seat, a seat board secured to said top triangle, and ground engaging means secured to said bottom triangle.

6. A jumping seat comprising three Z-shaped springs each lying generally in a vertical plane, said planes intersecting to form a vertical prism, a horizontal seat board, means securing the upper ends of said springs to said seat board, and means fixing the relationship of the bot-toms of said springs.

7. A jumping seat comprising a plurality of Z-shaped springs each lying generally in a vertical plane, said planes intersecting to form a vertical prism, a horizontal seat board, means securing the upper ends of said springs to said seat board, and means fixing the relationship of the bottoms of said springs.

8. A spring construction comprising, a plurality of Z- shaped resilient strips each having an upper and lower portion joined at acute angles to an intermediate portion, and means at each end of said strips fixing the adjacent parallel portions of the strips with respect to each other with each intermediate portion overlying and spaced from an adjacent intermediate portion.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 244,586 Goodspeed July 19, 1881 1,861,661 Huerlin June 7, 1932 2,567,418 Barker Sept. 11, 1951 2.57 667 Zeisel Nov. 6, 1951 

